Luxury Glamping Guide: The World's Most Extraordinary Tented Camps and Safari-Style Retreats
Luxury glamping has evolved far beyond bell tents in a field. These are the world's most extraordinary tented retreats, from Patagonian domes to Serengeti camp classics.
The word “glamping” has suffered somewhat from overuse, applied to anything from a slightly upgraded camping field to a Kylie Jenner Instagram backdrop, but the concept it originally described remains genuinely extraordinary: accommodation that delivers the emotional truth of sleeping under canvas, under stars, in wild places, without asking you to sacrifice comfort, cuisine, or warmth.
At its finest, luxury glamping does something that neither hotels nor conventional camping can achieve. It places you precisely at the intersection of wilderness and civilisation: close enough to lions to hear them at night, far enough from infrastructure to see the Milky Way in its full arc, but with a proper bed, a sommelier, and a bath drawn for your return from the afternoon game drive.
This guide covers the finest examples worldwide, organised by region and type, with honest assessments of what makes each distinctive.
The luxury tented camp concept was essentially invented by the East African safari industry, and the finest African properties remain the global benchmark for this accommodation style.
Singita Grumeti’s camp on the western Serengeti corridor is, by the consensus of those who have stayed at both the best and the merely very good, the finest tented camp in Africa and arguably the finest luxury camp in the world.
The camp occupies a private concession of 350,000 acres on the western route of the Great Migration, a landscape that sees enormous wildebeest and zebra movements between June and October, accompanied by the predator concentrations that follow. The 10 tented suites are constructed on elevated timber platforms above the Grumeti River, each with a private deck, private plunge pool, and unobstructed bush views. Inside: proper beds, proper bathrooms, a writing desk, and a dressing room, a hotel room that happens to have canvas walls and a view of the African bush.
The food program is exceptional by any comparison: produce flown in and locally sourced, menus that change daily, a wine cellar of comparable quality to a serious restaurant. The evening “bush dinners”, tables laid under the stars in the bush, with camp fires and the sounds of the night, are meals that guests remember years later.
Wildlife: The Grumeti concession is outside the national park, which means game drives can leave at any hour, off-road driving is permitted, and night drives, revealing the entirely different cast of characters that Africa’s darkness hides, are available. Big cats, elephants, hippos in the Grumeti River, and the migration spectacle in season.
Price range: From $2,500/person/night all-inclusive (meals, drinks, game drives) Best time: June–October for the Migration; January–March for calving season in the southern Serengeti See also: Our safari lodges category for the full spectrum of extraordinary African safari accommodation.
The Masai Mara, Kenya’s share of the greater Serengeti ecosystem, is the destination that most visitors picture when they imagine the quintessential African safari. &Beyond Bateleur Camp, positioned on the Mara’s private conservancy land bordering the national reserve, captures the classic 1920s safari aesthetic, wicker furniture, brass lanterns, canvas and wood, with 21st-century comfort levels.
The nine tents are large and classically styled, with claw-foot baths, four-poster beds, and private plunge pools. The communal areas, a main mess tent, library, bar, have the feel of a historic expedition camp updated for contemporary expectations. &Beyond’s guiding program is consistently strong; the guides who work the private conservancy land (where off-road driving and night drives are permitted) are among the Mara’s most knowledgeable.
Price range: From $1,100/person/night all-inclusive Getting there: Charter flight from Nairobi Wilson Airport (45 minutes); scheduled services to Mara airstrips
Jack’s Camp in the Makgadikgadi Pans of Botswana is a different kind of glamping extraordinary: not lush wildlife country but a vast, disorienting, beautiful salt pan landscape, the bed of an ancient inland sea, where the emptiness is the entire point.
The camp consists of ten tents on the edge of the pan in a palm oasis, each furnished in a fabulous 1940s African explorer aesthetic: Victorian botanical illustrations, original wooden campaign furniture, fossils and curios, the whole thing delivered with knowing humour and genuine scholarship. This is glamping as theatrical experience, you are a character in a story.
The activities are unlike those of any other camp: quad biking across the pan at sunset, swimming with meerkats (the Makgadikgadi’s habituated meerkat families allow extraordinary close contact), visiting a San (Bushmen) community with a cultural depth that most safari camps cannot offer, and in the rainy season, witnessing the extraordinary flamingo flocks that descend on the temporarily flooded pans.
Price range: From $1,000/person/night all-inclusive Best time: Dry season (May–October) for meerkat and wildlife; January–March for flamingos and dramatic skies
Patagonia has become glamping’s most dramatic canvas. Awasi Patagonia’s private villas in the Torres del Paine National Park region offer an extraordinary combination of spectacular architecture (low-slung, wind-resilient, with panoramic glazing facing the iconic torres peaks) and private guiding that provides access to the landscape’s full range.
Unlike most Patagonian lodges that run group excursions, Awasi assigns each guest a private guide and vehicle, a significant difference that allows itineraries tailored to pace, interest, and fitness level. The result is an intensely personal relationship with one of the world’s most extraordinary wilderness destinations.
Price range: From $1,400/person/night all-inclusive Activities: Day hikes to Torres del Paine base, puma tracking, condor sighting, horseback riding, fly-fishing See also: Our dedicated Patagonia remote lodges guide for the full range of southern Chile and Argentina stays.
Under Canvas has built a network of glamping properties adjacent to America’s most visited national parks, offering the park experience without the campground queue or the RV park aesthetic. Properties near Yellowstone, Zion, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Glacier National Park consist of canvas-walled tents ranging from standard to “Suite” level (king bed, private bathroom, wood-burning stove).
This is not Singita, it’s accessible glamping for the family or couple who want the campfire feeling without leaving civilisation entirely behind. But the locations are exceptional, the tents are genuinely comfortable, and the experience of waking in canvas adjacent to Yellowstone’s geyser fields or Zion’s canyon is something no motel can offer.
Price range: From $200/night (standard tent) to $500/night (Suite with ensuite)
Longitude 131° positions 15 luxury tented pavilions on a sand dune overlooking Uluru, the great red sandstone monolith at the geographic heart of Australia. The views from the pavilions, particularly from the private deck of the Dune Top Suite at dawn and dusk, as the rock cycles through extraordinary colour changes, are among travel’s most arresting.
The tents are fully enclosed and air-conditioned (essential, the Central Australian desert reaches 40°C+ in summer), with private bathrooms, king beds, and the general finish level of a luxury boutique hotel. The camp’s Field of Light experience, a Bruce Munro art installation of 50,000 solar-powered light stems covering the desert floor, adds a visual wonder to the sunset and night experience.
Price range: From AUD $2,000/person/night all-inclusive Best time: April–September (cooler temperatures; summer heat can be prohibitive) See also: Our desert camps category for more extraordinary arid-landscape glamping.
The Atlas Mountains region offers Morocco’s most dramatic landscape: high passes, Berber villages, cedar forests, and the transition to the Sahara’s northern edges. Scarabeo Camp, in the foothills above Marrakech, places ten tents in a remote valley with Atlas views, powered by solar energy, with Berber-influenced interiors and cooking that draws on the fire-braised, spice-layered traditions of the region.
The camp makes an excellent add-on to a Marrakech city visit: 1.5 hours by road, it offers a completely different environment and pace from the medina’s intensity.
Price range: From €200/person/night half-board
Several operators in the French Pyrenees have established high-altitude glamping experiences combining furnished canvas accommodations with access to the GR10 long-distance trail, mountain biking, and the extraordinary passes and valleys of the Spain/France border range.
The French luxury glamping sector has matured considerably, with properties now available across the Dordogne, the Luberon, and coastal Brittany, but the Pyrenees camps offer the strongest combination of wilderness setting and genuine glamping quality.
Aman-i-Khás (“rare/singular peace”) places ten spacious tents on the edge of Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, one of India’s best tiger reserves, in a design that references the great Mughal tent pavilions of the 16th century. The interiors are extraordinary: hand-embroidered canvas, Rajasthani textiles, solid metal fittings, and beds with proper hotel-grade linen.
The camp provides the tiger safari experience (Ranthambore’s Bengal tigers are among the most reliably sightable in India) in a context of real luxury: a rarity in Indian wildlife tourism, where most accommodation at reserve boundaries ranges from adequate to poor.
Price range: From $1,200/person/night all-inclusive Best time: October–April; park closes July–September for monsoon season
Already covered in our Bali guide, Capella Ubud deserves mention in any global glamping context: the theatrical tent-in-the-jungle concept, executed with extraordinary design quality, represents glamping’s most sophisticated expression in Asia.
The finest luxury tented camps share certain characteristics that distinguish them from hotels and that new guests should understand:
Canvas walls are not soundproof. You will hear the rain, the wind, and, in safari camps, the animal activity of the night. This is not a bug; it is the entire point. The soundscape of African bush at night, heard through canvas, is one of travel’s most extraordinary experiences.
Temperatures in tented accommodation vary more than in hotels. Most properties manage this with heating, air conditioning, and quality bedding, but guests should understand that extreme temperatures (cold alpine nights, desert heat) will be more present than in a conventional hotel room.
Power and connectivity are often limited. Remote glamping properties may operate on solar power with limited charging points; Wi-Fi is often absent or unreliable. This, again, is generally considered a feature by guests who came to disconnect.
- Neutral/dark coloured clothing: For safari camps, avoid bright colours and white (attracts insects, disturbs wildlife). Khaki, olive, brown, and navy are standard.
- Layers: Temperature swings in the bush (cool pre-dawn game drives, hot midday, cold evenings) require flexibility.
- Headlamp: Essential for navigating camp after dark; phone torches are insufficient.
- Quality binoculars: For wildlife observation; 8x42 or 10x42 specifications are optimal.
- Insect repellent: DEET-based for malaria-zone destinations; natural alternatives where appropriate.
- Sunscreen and hat: Sun exposure on open vehicles and desert camps is intense.
At the finest properties, Singita, Aman-i-Khás, Longitude 131°, the answer is unambiguously yes. The beds are superb, the bathrooms are well-equipped, the food is excellent. The difference from a conventional hotel room is not in comfort levels but in the sensory experience of the environment: the sounds, smells, temperatures, and visual context of genuine wilderness. This is a supplement to, not a substitute for, comfort.
In practice, the distinction is primarily architectural: a “lodge” has permanent walls (stone, timber, thatch), while a “glamping” or “tented camp” uses canvas for at least some surfaces. The luxury level, activity programs, and price points overlap significantly. Many of Africa’s finest properties are tented camps that offer service quality equivalent to or exceeding lodge competitors.
Africa’s best camps, Singita Grumeti, &Beyond Bateleur, should be booked 6–12 months in advance for peak season. Patagonian properties (peak January–March) require similar lead times. More accessible US glamping (Under Canvas) can often be booked a few weeks in advance outside summer holidays.
Many are, with some exceptions. Safari camps often impose minimum age limits (8–10 years) due to the proximity of dangerous wildlife. The Serengeti and Mara properties that allow children offer selected junior ranger programs that are excellent for older children. US glamping properties (Under Canvas) are specifically family-friendly.
